Whomp, Bonk, Pow
by PoppyPapillon
Summary: My first thought wasn't that I was going to die there, or that he was going to make me hurt quite a lot before I did. My first and only thought was that Bobby was going to be unbearably smug when he found out he'd been right.


I was a freshman in college the first time I ever played a real video game. I'm not talking Pong here; I'm talking controlling a character, exploring a new world, fighting villains, bashing my head into bricks to find hidden gold... Mario Brothers, that's what it was called. My friends and I puzzled over the controller and marveled at the graphics. Technology was _cool_.

And obsolete almost immediately, as it turned out.

"You gotta get him in a headlock. Watch–"

I leaned forward, squinting at the TV screen. The 3D images were grappling with each other from multiple angles, wielding maces and swords and hand grenades. "J.D., are you sure your mom is okay with–"

"Mom _bought_ me this, Aunt Alex," he assured me, his thumbs flying across the controller. "This is the hard part. Ready?"

"I'm so ready."

His warrior in the video game – a swarthy man who looked vaguely like Andre the Giant – knelt and grabbed his tentacled opponent behind the head.

"Here we go." J.D. licked his lips with anticipation. "You get him like this, and then it's like a whomp, and a bonk, and a... pow!" He jerked his shoulders around with enthusiasm, as the squid-beast collapsed onscreen. "Cool, huh?"

"Very."

"You wanna try?"

"I like watching better," I told him, smiling. As he kept playing, I pulled out my laptop, logging onto email. I'd found an inexpensive coffee table in good condition on Craigslist, and the seller and I were coordinating pickup.

"Aunt Alex, Aunt Alex – look! Watch me!" J.D. straightened up as his ogre was attacked by some sort of minotaur, and they began to do battle.

I closed my laptop, setting it aside. I liked watching J.D. play. Even if sometimes, when he got too exuberant and kicked the air, I felt a phantom pain deep in my belly.

* * *

Bobby scowled at me when I came into work. "Where've you been?"

I glanced at the clock. "I'm seven minutes early."

"I've been here since six," he said archly. "Reading over Joanna Glen's alibi."

"Goody for you." I tossed my purse into a drawer and plopped into the chair, switching the computer on.

He was watching me. He was always watching me, even when he wasn't. "You go out last night?"

"I did."

"Do anything fun?"

"Yeah, actually."

He waited for more information, and when I didn't offer any, he gave a phony smile. "Hot date?"

"Bobby, if I'm spending time with someone, it's no one's business but his and mine, okay?" I felt a little twinge of guilt at my wordplay, but only a little. After all, I'd learned that trick from him.

"That's great, Eames," he said, still grinning that big, stupid grin. "Really great."

He looked like he was about to say something else, but Ross came over with some paperwork, and the day began.

* * *

That night, when I left work, Bobby followed me.

At first, I thought I was imagining things. You get stared at enough by your partner, you start thinking you can feel it when it happens. Thing was, I _could_ feel it.

I ducked into a bookstore, a coffeeshop, a Korean barbecue joint. Each time, I peeked out a window and caught a glimpse of him across the street, pretending to talk on his cell phone while he watched the storefront.

The Pottery Barn had a back exit, and I lost him easily.

* * *

"Have a fun night?" he asked me in the morning when I arrived.

"Sure." I was crampy, and still irritable that he'd followed me. "Had a blast."

"Awesome."

"It _is_ awesome."

He followed me the next night, too. I was driving my car to the grocery store, and caught sight of him several cars back. Then it was an experiment to see how well I remembered how to lose a tail.

I remembered pretty darn well, as it turned out.

* * *

He was pissy the next morning. Really, really pissy.

"What are you doing after work?" he asked. "Tonight, I mean. Want to catch a Rangers game? I have tickets."

"Can't," I told him.

"Why not?"

"I'm picking up a coffee table after work."

"Oh." His face lightened a bit. "Do you need a truck or something?"

"No, my car should be fine."

"What kind of coffee table? Ikea?"

I shook my head. "It's a stained cherry. Got it off Craigslist for a steal." I started pulling files out of my briefcase, flipping through them idly.

"You're kidding, right?"

I looked back up, and he was frowning. "Kidding?"

"Kidding, yeah. Like when you lead me on a wild good chase around Manhattan."

"Not my fault you were following me. And no, I'm not kidding."

He leaned forward earnestly. "You don't know what kind of people are lurking on those sites. Didn't you hear about that guy up north who assaulted all those women, and–"

"Bobby, get a grip. Thousands of people use those sites every day. Safely."

"I still think you should have someone with you."

"No."

"It's–"

"No," I said again, firmly.

He scowled, and I was reminded of when I was baby-sitting J.D. one night, and told him he couldn't stay up to watch Family Guy. He'd given me a similar look.

Come to think of it, I'd caught him watching Family Guy an hour later.

* * *

"309," I mumbled to myself, squinting at the directions as I navigated through rush hour traffic. A cabbie cut me off, and I bit back some choice swear words. "Where the hell – oh." The apartment numbers were faded to near oblivion, but the 309 was just barely legible. I pulled into a parking spot and fed some quarters into the meter.

The apartment building was old; too old for a proper call box. The entrance was unlocked, so I walked into the foyer and headed up the stairs.

The guy in 421 opened the door as I approached. He was a little older than me. Tall, with a nice smile. "Alex?" he asked.

"Yup." I reached out, shaking his hand.

"Jake," he said, still smiling. "The coffee table's just inside; I can help you load it into your car, if you'd like." He held the door open for me, and I headed into the apartment.

"That'd be great, it–"

I fell silent I felt something sharp pressing into my back.

"Don't move," he said, low. The door closed behind him with a faint click "Do exactly what I say, and you won't get hurt."

My first thought wasn't that I was going to die there, or that he was going to make me hurt quite a lot before I did. My first and only thought was that Bobby was going to be unbearably smug when he found out he'd been right.

"Take a step forward," Jake said.

I complied, and he stepped forward too, leaning in closer behind me.

"Good girl." He breathed in deeply. "I knew you'd be small, but you're even smaller than I expected."

"You profile people who buy coffee tables, Jake?"

"It's easy," he said, running his palm up my side. "You accept the offer of everyone who contacts you, and then when you start arranging things, you find out more. Like if they've got a big boyfriend who's going to move it, or if they say they can lift it themselves. Those are deal-breakers. You said you'd need some help moving it to your car." His grip on my waist tightened, and I swallowed hard. "I liked that. Even still, you're tiny."

"I'm not that tiny."

"You're tiny. I like it." He pulled me back against him harder, and I felt a rush of nausea as first-hand evidence of how _much_ he liked the situation poked into my lower back. "Take off your shirt."

I took a breath, stepping forward slightly and reaching for the hem of my shirt. I felt the knife ease away, and took my opening. An elbow to the solar plexus, then to the back of the neck as he bent over with a groan, and then a roundhouse to the knees. A whomp and a bonk and a pow. He was on the floor in seconds.

Then there was a bang, as his front door splintered open. And Bobby was there, his gun drawn, his eyes wild, yelling and yelling and _yelling_, and throwing me handcuffs and lecturing me about checking prior arrest records, and all I could think was that in that moment, he looked a whole lot like Andre the Giant.

* * *

"Why'd you act like you were seeing someone?" he asked me later. After the arrest, the statements, the paperwork. We were sitting on my couch, our feet up on my ugly old coffee table, and I couldn't come up with an answer.

"I don't know."

"I think you do."

"I think I don't."

He smiled, a real smile, and it was lovely. "Guess what I got at a flea market last weekend."

"A fungal infection."

"Nope. One of those old Nintendo systems. Remember them? The gray ones, with those cartridges that you had to blow dust out of whenever they'd freeze up?"

I nodded.

"What do you say, Eames – want to break out a little Mario Brothers? I'll let you be Luigi."

I thought about battling evil villains, and finding hidden treasures behind brick walls.

"You're on."


End file.
